The New World
by 2ndbestdetective
Summary: In the middle of 1918, two friends reconcile. There's a reason I've not mentioned who's involved. Reviews are welcomed. First ever fan fiction thing.
1. Chapter 1

The New world

America,1918

A small cottage sat in the hills of Montana, outside a comparably small town called Springwater. The town, named for a wellspring that allowed the small homestead to survive and thrive, had seen much since the start of the great war. Its population was soon in the thousands but that great and terrible scourge from Europe had claimed much. Metal, people, food. For the war effort much was given and for that, the town suffered.

It suffered more at the hands of nature, the irony of nature taking more than man ever could, after four years of brutal conflict was not lost on the traveller who walked the road up to the small cottage that sat in the hills. Of all the places to be, he thought. The rolling hills of American heartland, wide open spaces and birdsong. It did little to hide the malice that the cottage contained.

The traveller was gaunt and old, well into his 64th year with salt and pepper hair finally succumbing to the snowy white that his genealogy dictated. His manner of dress somewhat out of season, grey tweed with brown boots and much of his weight supported by a black cane with a silver, curved handle. It was with this stick that the man hobbled up the slope at a leisurely pace which gave little away concerning his thrumming heartbeat.

Twenty seven years. Twenty seven years since he had last met the man. And in all that time, they had danced around each other like two nervous courters. Afraid to take the first leap, afraid to embrace for fear of what it would bring. Only the inevitability of what would occur was all too clear. Destruction on a level unknown. Much like the war except lost in the shadows of the underworld. A secret war. No, avoidance was the only option and both men knew the penalty. At certain points however, both men ignored the risks entirely.

The slope carried on through a small thicket of evergreens, branches crunched under the man's foot as he marched on, only to come to a halt at the sound of a cocked gun.

"Hold it pal. This is private property." The traveller stopped with a sigh and turned gently. He was getting old, too old and should have heard the man further away, perhaps noticed the traces of broken twigs or the heavy scent of brandy from the man's hipflask. He had split some earlier across his hunting jacket.

"My apologies sir. I am simply wishing to locate a friend." The traveller spoke, his hands rising into the air. "If I may, I have a letter, explaining as such." The gunman nodded as the old man slowly moved a wrinkled hand to his coat pocket and pulled free the invitation. The gunman took the paper and gave it a quick read.

"It is my master's hand writing alright, but we didn't receive no word of a visitor besides the doctor. Don't normally get them around here." He gave a sniff, his nose unseasonably red. Poor soul.

"It is a spur of the moment visit I confess, but I found myself travelling through and thought it best to visit my old friend, while I still can." His hands had now returned to besides his waist.

"So, you know?" The traveller gave a solemn nod of his head. "The house is 10 minutes further up, I'll announce you Mister…?"

"Pike. Langdale Pike." Said he.

"Right this way Mr Pike."

The remaining walk was surprisingly pleasant as Pike and the gunman meandered up out of the small woodland and finally came upon the cottage. It was built, Pike noticed, in a European style with heavy wooden beams kept the roof stable above the decking outside which contained a table and two chairs.

"Wait here." The gunman, whom Pike had ascertained was called Toby, grunted out as he entered to announce the visitor. Pike took another glance around the decking upon which he spied an old copy of a book he had once become very well acquainted with: The Dynamics of an Asteroid, and other lecture notes.

"Mr Birch will see you now." Toby said as Pike looked up, a small smile on his face. "Thank you. Where do I put my hat and coat?" he asked as Toby gave a nod to a near by coat hanger, where Pike hung up his deerstalker.


	2. Chapter 2: Damage of a Collateral Nature

The bedroom in which Mr Birch had situated himself was on the ground floor, a four-poster bed took centre stage, a radio in the corner and the bedside table littered with bottles and a basin. But the main draw of the room was the view. A large open window gave way to a truly stunning view of the surrounding area. Nature was indeed at the heart of the architect's vision for the building and everything around it showed that. Not that the two men in the room cared much for the wonders of the natural world.

Toby had left them, standing outside at his master's bidding who remained in his bed dressed in dark green pyjamas and a black dressing gown. The signs of age were clear, the man almost bald which fully accented the great globe of his forehead and deep-set beedy eyes that looked out over pale cheeks to his visitor.

"You found me then." His voice was haggard and rough. Not at all like the cutting chill that the traveller remembered.

"I never lost you." Pike replied, sitting in a chair slightly away from the bed.

"Yes, I suppose that performs to type. Tell me 'Mr Pike', is victory so important, that you would risk your very life to see me?"

"Professional curiosity forced my hand. Given our last encounter I had to see it with my own eyes, however faulty they may be. I confess, despite appearances, Toby does not strike me as a murderer." Around the room, Pike cast his gaze, ensuring that they were indeed truly alone with no nasty surprises awaiting him.

"Toby is not the killer I refer to. You know my condition; you know the situation. I recall that you engineered a similar situation using beeswax and starvation involving the case of Calverton Smith. I sadly, am not in such a gaming mood." As if to further his point, the bed ridden man let loose a fit of hacking coughs followed by several snorts and shivers. "Dying with dignity, what rot."

Pike simply placed his hands upon his cane and kept well back, a surgical mask well over his face. "You showed your victims little; I fail to see why fate would be any different to you."

The man ignored this. "How." He demanded.

"When you and I met at Reichenbach, I truly think we both expected to die there. I had the upper hand, and you the stronger spirit. It must have been a struggle, pulling yourself out of the depths, a damaged rib cage, a fractured skull…broken limbs. Yet you recovered, as I did. You returned to London for a spell, murdered a colleague of mine…"

"Don't make me laugh, Holmes. Athelney Jones was no friend of yours. I took no pleasure in killing him." It was true, during his time in trying to undo the attack on his organisation from his opposite number in America, Professor Moriarty had in some ways, came to respect the dogged police Offer, right up until the moment he planted a bullet between his eyes.

Holmes continued. "…And fled to the United States with the aim of recreating your organisation in one of the new world's great cities. You did well, I remained unaware of your activities for several years. Four to be exact. Until, as Watson penned it, 'The runaway page boy'. He was in your employ Moriarty and you failed him." There was a chilled tone of judgment that cut through Holmes' voice, no need for tricks and masks.

"What of Ross, Holmes? What of the several street urchins in your little police force that you risked in your pursuit of trivial crimes?" The Professor spat out, once more having to hold back a chorus of coughs and splutters. "You were telling me how you 'never lost me'. If you'd be so kind as to get on with it. I'm not long for this world."

Holmes' grip on the cane tightened audibly. The Baker Street irregulars had been one of his most grey areas of operation while active in London. At the time he stood by his mantra of his secret police, they were after all, the eyes and ears of London. Time and age had changed that. Now Sherlock saw that while effective, he did perhaps place them into situations otherwise too dangerous for any child. The War of course struck hard against his former irregulars. Wiggins, his top lieutenant was claimed by that great and terrible period. Holmes had to find out through the boy's fiancée.

He pulled himself back from the bleak swamp of memory and into the harsh present, where the image of the greatest criminal mind of his time lay wheezing in bed like a sputtering steamer, their alias' simply forgotten. "It was Oberstine and how he bungled the snatch for the Bruce-Partington Plans. I believed I was seeing things. The use of an agent with a predilection for violence is your autograph and so once he was imprisoned, I set to questioning him. It was through one of your agents sent from America who hired Oberstine."

"Yet you did nothing?"

"After our last joust I could not risk the repercussions. Watson and I had foiled your plot to expose one of England's military secrets and, as your new home says, 'I took the win'." Sherlock sat back in the creaky chair, watching the Professor watch him.

"If you are expecting congratulations, you have waisted a trip. Shortly after I was run out of New York, forced to flee to Chicago. It was you wasn't it? Who the police service consulted? Hmph, your silence speaks volumes." The two had over the years parried and thrusted across the great Atlantic, but it was the Professor who was now bed ridden and waiting to die of the Spanish flue.


End file.
